Anthony Hopkins Movie:

		List Price: $6.94		Label: MGM (Video & DVD) Salesrank: 76131 Released: July 8, 1994
		Our Price: $0.74
		Used Price: $0.50
		MPAA Rating: R (Restricted) Media: VHS Tape

Desperate Hours Reviews:
Watch only out of desperation...
2008-10-31 - When you see the name Anthony Hopkins you automatically think `good movie'. I made that mistake before (with `Alexander' and `The Human Stain') and apparently I made that mistake again. In fact, `Desperate Hours' is so bad that it actually made me question whether or not Anthony Hopkins is really a good actor. Then again, you hear the name Michael Cimino and you recall the brilliance that was `The Deer Hunter' and you think `this has got to be good'. Honestly, Cimino is probably the worst thing about this movie. The films poor execution and lack of intelligence sucked all the charisma and charm and realism out of its cast and left us with a vapid and ridiculous waste of a free evening.

The film follows escaped convict Michael as he breaks into Nora's home with his brother Wally and their criminal partner Albert. Michael just needs a place to hold up until his girlfriend Nancy can meet up with him. Nora has some problems of her own. She is separated from her cheating husband Tim and is constantly fighting with him. When Tim shows up at the house, as well as their two children May and Zack, the family becomes hostages fighting for their survival from these ruthless men.

The plot is rather ridiculous as the character make decision after decision that no normal human being would make, and the script leaves no room for real tension within all the stupidity. It's a shame, because I hear that the original film is actually very, very good, but this film was so horrid that I actually deleted the original off my DVR before I had a chance to watch it.

Now I have to wait until it's reaired.

The acting is a major sore spot here as well. Like I said, you hear the name Anthony Hopkins and you think `great movie'. He has a reputation for being a great actor. He's won an Oscar and countless other awards and he's held with high esteem in the acting community. That said; his performance here is atrocious. Hopkins has this very calm and mannered delivery of lines that perfectly suits him for period films and somewhat pigeonholes him. That delivery does not work well in this sort of movie. Mimi Rogers is also somewhat out of her element, but I admit that I don't truly know what her element would be. Elias Koteas is a mess, and David Morse (and actor I actually really enjoy) is just plain comical here.

No one is as bad as Kelly Lynch, but I don't even want to get into that hot mess.

Mickey Rourke is the only one that comes away with some dignity, but not much when you think about it. In a way he just mimicked a better actor. I dare you to watch his performance and not see Bruce Willis. He talks like him, acts like him and even looks like him here. They should have just gotten Willis himself; but perhaps he had better sense than to attach himself to this mess. So, Rourke actually turns out a charismatic and interesting performance, but only because he's calling to mind another more talented actor.

So in the end I cannot recommend this movie for any reason whatsoever because the movie is a total waste of time. Like I said in my review title; only see this movie out of extreme desperation, and by extreme I mean like if you were Will Smith and the whole world was filled with flesh eating zombies and you only had a dog for a companion and the local video store was recently burnt down by the zombies and the only video that was left unscathed was `Desperate Hours'. Then, and only then, should this movie be watched.

Okay, that was kind of harsh.

EDIT: I just want to make it clear that I gave this movie ONE star...as in an F...yet it for some reason saved it as TWO stars...so, just know that I think this movie deserves ONE, not TWO stars...

Cimino's worst movie
2008-02-16 - With superb performances from Frederic March, Humphrey Bogart and Arthur Kennedy, a taut script and on the money direction from William Wyler, The Desperate Hours is one of the great thrillers of all time. Unfortunately, this is Desperate Hours, one of the worst films of the nineties, or any other decade for that matter.

The first 15 minutes are great: tight, controlled and fairly convincing, with a surprisingly on-form Mickey Rourke. It doesn't last. As soon as he and his fellow unstable escaped murderers hide out in the home of Anthony Hopkins and Mimi Rogers' dysfunctional family it goes down the toilet faster than bleach. Logic is quickly abandoned, there are some dazzlingly obvious continuity errors and before long you feel almost as much a hostage as the truly obnoxious family themselves.

Mickey Rourke is initially very good, but the performance is not properly thought through and falls to pieces around the halfway mark. Hopkins, the most ridiculous Vietnam vet the screen has yet produced, is just appalling, Crouse bullish and one note while Kelly Lynch displays her breasts at every available opportunity - even in the opening jailbreak! - and to heck with logic or necessity.

With Desperate Hours, Michael Cimino finally made a film as bad as Heaven's Gate was supposed to be (but wasn't). Actually make that two, if you include The Sicilian. On the plus side, David Mansfield's score is very good indeed. Nothing else is. Avoid.


Great Production and Acting Salvage Improbable Plot
2007-10-17 - `Desperate Hours' calls us to question why do we do the things we do? Or rather why do these characters do the things they do? Neither the villains or heroes actions seem to make any sense.

The plot: Mickey Rourke in the role he was born to play stars as a brilliant armed robber who escapes from prison with the help of his beautiful girlfriend and attorney Kelly Lynch.

Rourke reunites with his henchmen whom are not as smart as the Three Stooges. Together they head for the suburbs of Utah and hold the state's only nuclear family, Anthony Hopkins, Mimi Rogers and their two kids hostage in their mansion.

FBI agent Lindsey Crouse is hot on their trail with an army of cops to take Rourke down without harming the Hopkins family.

Why it works. As I said Rourke truly gives the performance of his career and a hansom devil psycho. Hopkins and Rogers also work especially Rogers as the house wife next door. We really hate Rourke and we really love the family.

The production quality is also very high. From costume design to photography to editing, to the score which is reminiscent of the 1940s noir thrillers on which the film was based. The production quality really is good enough to make the whole film worth while.

The big flaw the film makers have to overcome is WHY IS THIS HAPPENING? Why is the now freed Rourke only exposing himself of more heat be kidnapping the family. While his stated motive is because he is waiting to reunite with Kelly Lynch, a far better idea would be to hide out unseen. Secondly why is Lynch leading to police right to Rourke's front door? Shouldn't she be hiding too? And if Rourke is so psychotically evil why does he not physically harm the family?

That's the annoying thing. There are many lapses in logic. 1. Rourke escapes from a courthouse cell with Lynch's inner thigh pistol and disables the one single guard on duty.

2. Lynch in police custody plans to pretend to be an innocent. Wouldn't she already be guilty of bringing a gun into the court house?

3. Why is Rourke holding the family hostage if not to harm them?

4. The hostages themselves are equally incompetent. They have many chances to escape and do not. Rourke even allows the teenage daughter to go out on a date with her boyfriend. I think most people would change their plans and give up a date save their family by going to the police.

5. The police themselves are silly. They allow the apprehended Lynch to enter the house and warn Rourke of the hundreds of cops outside.

6. The police rather than using sniper rifles use submachine guns at one point spraying the entire house with bullets with reckless disregard for the family. Yet they hit only one of the criminals.

7. Another odd sequence of evens is when one of the gang is told to get rid of the corpse of the family's murdered Realtor. Was the basement full? Why draw more attention? The criminal draws attention to himself by driving erratically and takes to body out into the country. Instead of hiding he goes to the nearest gas station covered in blood asking for help. The first people he meets are Playmates. His lucky day but what are the odds? He then returns to the shallow grave where he is met by dozens of SWAT team members. How'd they get their so fast? And why are they just waiting around for him to show up?


Thriller
2005-08-03 - I would agree with several other reviewers that this is a moving and captivating thriller! In the rare case that home invasions occur, they are absolutely frightening. Rourke is one of the best actors playing a slimy thug. He is very believable and Anthony Hopkins is as usual, brilliant. Michael Bosworth is a seasoned sociopath (Mickey Rourke), and Hopkins provides a great good vs. evil contrast in this one. Probably not for children under 16.

Pointless film!
2005-05-29 - When you decide to adapt a classic film you should take warning several aspects: Has the story aged? How has the suspense's concept altered for the new audiences?
We know about the professed sympathy of Cimino for Rourke. We saw him in The year of the Dragon. And somehow Mickey doesn't look credible as the distorted mind criminal. He is too rational and cold to represent that hard character. The illumination is another serious problem. The whole drama looks extremely theatrical: Anthony Hopkins looks uncomfortable with the role and Mimi Rogers is inexpressive. Elias Koteas is simply out of context and perhaps that's why the insipid dialogue. Maybe David Morse shows certain wild tendency. There is a rigidity in the dialogue. Obviously you assist to the common places: the internal disagreements in the policy procedure. Lindsay Cruise is assertive in this role. But the initial sequence of the getaway is terrific. It looks too artificial and the viewer' adrenaline simply is not emanated. The sumptuous photography saves the film of the collapse. The music didn't help to maintain the suspense. It is not easy to readapt a classic film of the fifties. Something similar happened with Cape fear `s remake.
The question might be around the new approach of the suspense and the new technologies. Bogart looked extremely old for the role and Rourke looked too elegant to be a convincing ex con.
Good entertainment for teenagers in a pop corn rainy weekend.